Well, I just wanted to show up here on Instagram Live. I’ve been in lockdown for weeks and weeks, and. I’ve used the time staying at home to work on my new book. Last week was … The book has been interesting. It’s been up and down in terms of creativity. I guess March was a challenging month for all of us, as the world fell and we had to adapt to a new way of living.
And as a writer, my inspiration definitely depends on, or I can’t write in an inspired way if I’m not feeling inspired. And when I was looking at the news, which I usually don’t do, but in March I just wanted to see what was going on so I could pivot and protect my family and just respond to what was going on. It wasn’t the most inspiring thing and my writing suffered.
But maybe it didn’t. What I wrote in March on the new book was just very raw and very real.
And sometimes when you’re hurting for what the world is going through, it allows you to access a place of great depth and great rawness. And last week I wrote 40 chapters. I’m not saying I’m so special or anything. I’m just saying that the muse decided to come out and play. And it was like a man possessed. I just could not not write. And Friday I wrote 15 chapters of the new book. I don’t know where it came from. And I’ve read about people, I think Stephen King and Ernest Hemingway, they get up at 5:00 AM and they just … Well, Ernest Hemingway just gets up at 5:00 AM, sits at the desk, and writes whether he felt like it or not.
I’m a little different, I write when the muse shows up, and if I don’t feel inspired or nothing’s
flowing then I just put away, I just don’t write. Because I know what I’m writing is garbage and I’ll have to rewrite it again. So last week was a great week on the book, and then this week I am pulling back from the book while my assistant makes the changes. And I’m just reading and I’m catching up on other things and just regenerating a little bit so that organically, when I come back to the book next week, I’ll be fresh and strong and hopefully have new insights and I’ll be able to go to a deeper place. By the way, you know what I’ve found? The more healing I do the deeper I can go in my work.
And I don’t think it’s that common for people to talk about emotional healing and the quality of your art or your poetry, but for me that’s just the way it works. The more I release toxic energy or things that I’ve been holding onto, the more intimacy I build with my natural creativity and it just shows up in the work. So it’s very easy to think, “Oh, if I’m doing mindset, recoding, or heartset healing, or spiritual work, well, that doesn’t relate to the world.” I think it very much relates to the world because the more intimacy you build with who you truly are, the more you clear out your demons and your baggage and your limiting beliefs and your repressed emotions.
Well, what’s that going to do? It’s going to make you lighter and it’s going to make you more of
who you truly are and it’s going to connect you to more of your light. And if you’re more connected to your light, you’re more connected to your truth and you will release your magic to the world. I think also, when you get stronger as a human being, those four interior empires that I explained in The 5AM Club, when you build those interior empires, this is I think a very important point. You feel much. safer in the world. And when you feel much safer in the world, then you don’t care about other people’s opinion. And if you don’t care about other people’s opinions, you write from a place of truth and service.And if you write from a place of truth and service, you write from a place of authenticity and people fall in love with you being your truest self. You’re not copying anyone else, you’re telling it like it is in a way
that doesn’t hurt other people. That’s magical.
I don’t know if you guys have any questions. “Hello from Russia,” says Ava, and I say hello to you as well. There’s someone from Carola, God’s country. I say hello to you. Pablo Burgos. Tell me where you’re from, guys, and if you want to ask me some clear questions I’d love to answer them. Give me some clear questions that are interesting and challenging versus, “How do I set goals” or anything. There’s lots of people who can tell you how to set goals. Someone’s mom just saying from my beloved South Africa, from the boy doing things, Mozambique, Ravi from India, Jessica from Colombia, Eb from Iraq. We’ve got the whole world on here. We’ve got[Jaimudi from Bahrain, Linda from Kenya. You know, my mom is from Nairobi. So we have Vaneer, Arthur from Peru. Nice to see you, Arthur. We have Omnia from Qatar, Ormoral from Texas. We have Argentina. Adabo says I’m a legend from Bristol. Thanks, but I’m no legend. When I think of a legend I think of Edison. I think of Gandhi, I think of MLK, I think of Mandela, I think of Shakespeare, I think of Serena Williams. Oh, my son and I watched the Michael Jordan Bulls documentary. If you haven’t seen it, it’s on Netflix. We watched it last night. It’s called The Last Dance, really incredible. When I think of a legend I think of Michael Jordan. So I don’t see myself as a legend at all. I see myself very much as an everyday, normal human being trying to figure things out. I’ve got my struggles, I’ve got my strengths. I learn something new every day. And yesterday morning I was reading Seneca’s The Shortness of Life. And a lot
of these Stoic philosophers talk so much about the fact that life is a short ride and before we know it we go back to nature or source. And I try to keep a connection with my mortality as close as possible.
I think it was Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor, who said Alexander and his mule
driver both ended up in the same place. And if you can keep your death front and center … By the way, I don’t think that’s morbid, I think it’s inspirational. But if you can keep your death front and center then you’re fearless. Because if you know you’re going to die soon or late, then what can the world do to you? And what I’m really trying to say is, when you realize that all the great kings and queens that were worshiped years ago are just forgotten, then we don’t take ourselves too seriously. And if you don’t take yourself too seriously, then you’re not going to be worried about being a legend or having your name on a hospital wing. Or, Seneca in The Shortness of Life talked about, we do all these glorious things to have our name, to have a year named after us. It’s a great passage. The book is called The Shortness of Life by Stoic philosopher Seneca. And what he said was, we do all these things to great rulers, we do all these things to have a year named after us, all for the sake of a line on our tombstone. And I know you’re smart. So to me that just means, we chase glory in the world for a line on a tombstone. Let’s not take ourselves too seriously. Let’s get up in the morning, pursue creative self-expression, let’s have a great time with our families. Let’s smell the flowers, let’s
read great books, let’s be good human beings. I remember meeting my friend Deepak Chopra in an airport a few years ago, and we had breakfast together. And I said, “Deepak, what advice do you have to me?” Because he’s a really wonderful soul. And he said, “Be a good human.” No, excuse me. He said, “Be a good animal.” He said, “Be a good animal.” And I think that’s good advice. Let’s not worry about likes on social media. Let’s not worry about big houses. Let’s not worry too much about fame and fortune. Let’s be good animals. Let’s do great work. Let’s pursue our craft. I love my craft. I mean, writing this new book, it’s exhausting and it’s
exhilarating. It’s terrifying and it’s beautiful. I’m for a title for the book. Maybe I should call it The Terrifying and the Beautiful. I don’t know what you think. Tell me what you should call the book. I’ve been playing with so many titles. Like this morning I came up with The Honoring, because I think the book is very much about honoring your genius and your productivity and your bravery and your authenticity in your life. But I haven’t been able to come up with a title yet. It was going to be about heroism, because the book is about heroism. I don’t know. I’m sort of stuck on what the title should be.
The new book is very much about being heroic in the world but not losing your soul in the
process. In The 5AM Club, I don’t know if you’ve read The 5AM Club, but it’s one of the best
selling books in the world right now for a reason. It’s transforming people’s lives and helping them how to turn adversity into opportunity. If you haven’t read The 5AM Club, I really believe it’ll serve you to read the book today. Get that book today and read it and study it. Get the audio book, the ebook. The book is absolutely transforming people’s lives. And so I feel obligated to encourage you with great love and respect to read The 5AM Club as quickly as possible.
Don’t read it if you’re not interested in growing and learning and exploring your bigness, don’t
read it if you don’t want to change. Don’t read it if you’re going to judge new ideas as bad because you’re terrified of growth, then you won’t love The 5AM Club. But if you want to honor your genius, if you want to live your dreams, if you want to be the hero of your life, if you want to do amazing things,if you want to help the world by living your brilliance, then read The 5AM Club.. That’s what the book is about. Mary, “I happen to have a very sensitive nature. How can I fix it?” Oh, Mary, you’re not broken. I have a very sensitive nature too. That’s what makes us great artists. That’s what makes us great parents. That’s what makes us great human beings. The world has beaten the sensitivity out of us. You don’t have to fix anything, Mary, honor your sensitivity.
And then I’d say, manage your sensitivity. When someone says something, when someone
criticizes me, it hurts. When someone doesn’t appreciate me, it hurts, because we’re sensitive human beings. But I think if you’re fully alive you’re going to feel. When we were little kids, if someone didn’t want to play with us, we were sensitive so we cried or it hurt. That’s our nature, Mary. So don’t feel ashamed or broken about your sensitivity. If you don’t have intimacy with sensitivity, then how are you going to produce a great book or a great piece of code or a great painting or a great movement? The greatest amongst us were sensitive. We were still alive. So don’t feel, like you said, how can I fix my sensitivity? There’s nothing to fix, just protect it and come up with strategies to recover when you get hurt.
Like journaling, like what I did this morning. I got on my bike and I just rode in a forest, which
was, we’re in lockdown where I live, but we’re allowed to ride in the forest. And it was 6:30 so no one was in the forest. And that’s one way I recover my sensitivity.
So Mark says, “I love The 5AM Club.” Amazing. Says Prateek, “How can I start writing my own book?” You start writing your own book. Do it today. That’s how you start writing a book. One line. How do you start a masterpiece? One brush stroke. How did you start a movement? One person. Interesting M8 asks, what are my thoughts on Carl Jung’s shadow concept? I think it’s awesome. A lot of what I wrote in The 5AM Club. about repressed feelings comes from Carl Jung’s shadow concept. Along with other great philosophers, I do believe we’ve all been traumatized. A lot of the new book is going to be about this. Trauma is not a dirty word. We’ve all been traumatized to various degrees. Some of us have experienced violence. Some of us weren’t invited to the right dinner party. It all creates trauma. Society says repress it, don’t feel it. It creates what Carl Jung called the shadow, what I call the field of hurt. And then we block it and we deny it. This is profound, I suggest to you. We block it and we deny it, so we have this deep well of toxic energy in our Heartsets. If you don’t know what Heartset is, read The 5AM Club.. You’ll learn about the Four Interior Empires, Mindset, Heartset, and Soulset. And then when you start working on your Heartset and releasing all the shame, guilt, anger, sorrow that we all build up on the human journey, guess what? You get healthier. You become more positive. You connect with your glory. You become braver. You get more creative, you
become more productive, because we are our own worst enemy. You are meant for heroism.
But if you’ve got this massive energy field of traumatic energy stuffed within you, traumatic
emotion, and you’ve listened to what the world says, which is, “Big boys don’t cry, good girls don’t feel,” then you’re living in your head and you’re half alive. And yes, you don’t feel your pain, but you don’t feel your magic. I know so many people, everyone’s talking about journaling now. They do gratitude journaling, but it’s an intellectual exercise. But if you don’t feel gratitude, then you’re missing out on the
magic of life, aren’t you?
Okay. “How do you start doing something that’s in the back of your mind?” Well, I say this with a lot of love and respect, but own your power. You don’t need to ask me, how do you do something? I’m not trying to in any way, be disrespectful. I’m being actually respectful to the person who just asked me the question. How do you do something? You do it. You don’t have to come to me. I’m not a guru. Don’t give me your power. Respect yourself. You don’t need to ask me, how do you do something that’s on your mind. You just exercise your own power and you go do it.
Okay, guys, let me see if I can find some questions here. Someone says hello from Iran. Natasha, Natasha asks, “What if you give everything …” Oh, that looks like a good question. “What if you give everything for purpose and you’re blocked by others you can’t control?” Well, here’s what I’d say to that. I get blocked by others. The 5AM Club before it … You know, this is so interesting. When The 5AM Club first came out in January of 2019, I think it was such a disruptive book people hated it. Bob Dylan says, don’t criticize what you don’t understand. So I’m just telling you point blank, honestly, when The 5AM Club came out January of 2019, and there were also, I believe, some bad actors who didn’t
want the book to succeed. But aside from that, when the book came out I think it was so disruptive because the four interior empires, in a world that says mindset is everything, all those models in the The 5AM Club, the two massage protocol, the 10 rituals of Daily Genius, the whole idea that success without soulfulness is an empty game, the whole idea of getting up at 5:00 AM. You can either shoot the messenger or embrace the message. And Natasha, it’s much easier to shoot the messenger than to explore new ideas. Because when you explore new ideas then you have to grow, and growth is a terrifying yet beautiful pursuit. And so all I’m trying to say is, it was interesting what happened with The 5AM Club.. At first it was hated and now it’s beloved around the world because the narrative shifted.
It was the most interesting thing. Enough people started reading The 5AM Club and realizing that it gave them their power back and it taught them inspiration and philosophy, but also how to reclaim, not change, how to reclaim the creativity, productivity, love in their hearts, power, love of life, love of humanity, heroism that life beat out of them. And then the narrative just changed. I didn’t have to do much. And so all I would say to you is, a symptom of shining your light into the world is being blocked by other people. You look at Jesus, you
look at Mandela, you look at Elon Musk, you look at Oprah, you look at Tesla the inventor, you look at Galileo and Copernicus, who said the world is round. You look at Tim Berners-Lee, who said the Internet will change everything. The very nature of sharing something special with the world means that you will be hated on. And Natasha and every one of you joining me here, if you stop because you face adversaries or criticism or jealousy or people who are trying to block your path, then you’re going to betray your call to the world and you’re actually going to dishonor your own light and your own glory and your own potential and your own gifts and your talents. And so I want to just say in this very intimate, hopefully, Instagram Live, leadership is a blood sport. Creativity is dangerous, and it’s messy, and it’s beautiful. The new book is very cathartic for me. In case you’re just joining me, I’m working on a new book. I’ve been working on it most of this year. And I believe the word catharsis comes from the Greek word cleanse. And this new book is about productivity and it’s about leadership and it’s about heroism, all the things I always write about. It’s about creativity. It’s about prosperity. It’s about building a great company. It’s about impact on humanity. But for me it’s also the most honest book I’ve ever written. Not that any book I’ve written is dishonest, but the more
you mature and the deeper you go within yourself, the more you don’t really care about what other people think. And the more I feel safe, the more I do my growth work at 5:00 AM, the victory hour, the more Mindset work, Heartset work, Healthset work, Soulset work that I do, the more safe I feel in the world.
And the more safe I feel in the world … Actually, let me share something that I just wrote about in the new book. The less afraid I am of death, the more safe I am of life. Last week I got to a place where I asked myself this question. “What if I die?” And I journaled about it and I processed about it and I meditated about it. And I got to a place where it was, that’s okay. It’s just a transition. If you look at all the great poets and mystics and philosophers, they all say that death is just a transition. We lose the body and we return to eternity. So why would I care about death? And if you can get to a place of fearlessness around death, then who can hurt you? And so I’m just saying, this whole Four Interior Empires that I shared in The 5AM Club., and the work at 5:00 AM to 6:00 AM that I call the victory hour in The 5AM Club. book, and all the methods and modalities that I shared in The 5AM Club. life-changing.
Because if you get to a place where you become unconquerable within, then no one on the
outside can ever conquer you. No thing on the outside can ever conquer you. And you don’t do it, you don’t live your life to please the world. Who cares? You live your life to please your glory and to honor your gifts and talents. What a place to be, huh? What a … And then you become, like they say in theholy books, you participate in the world but you are not of the world. It’s a pretty powerful place to be.
And all I’m saying is, when you get to a place where you’re comfortable with death, like even death doesn’t scare you, then you feel unbelievably safe in the world. Well, Robin, how does that apply to me writing or in business or as an entrepreneur or as a leader? It’s everything. Because then you trust your heart. Then you live your values. Then you pursue your mission. Then you serve the world.
And if people try to attack you or resist you or condemn you, or you meet with an obstacle, you will laugh in the face of adversity. Because you just go, “It can’t hurt me. I’m doing what I know is true. I’m doing what I know is true.” And as an artist, the safer I feel in the world, the more truthful I become. And I’m writing in this book, I’m writing about death in this book, I’m writing about life in this book. I’m writing about creativity in this book, I’m writing about critics in this book, I’m writing about my routines in this book. I’m writing about my struggles in this book. I just feel more safe than ever for you to know I have struggles, I have doubts, I have fears. I’ve been bloodied. And please don’t think, “Oh, well, that was when I started out.” I get bloodied pretty much every day. And I also am having the time of my life. If I refused to grow I wouldn’t get bloodied. If I rested on my laurels, if I retired … Oh, you know,
I did a post yesterday on my main Instagram feed. And it was, “I long to move to the country and maybe get a dog or two and live in a little cottage with crooked shelves and books all around me.” And that does speak to me very deeply, that kind of a life. But I might do it for a year. Part of me wants to drop out of public next year. Well, that’s one of the rewards of lockdown, isn’t it? We get to drop out of public. And this is an incredibly … My heart suffers for what’s going on in the world, the unemployment, the death, the sickness. Many of our brothers and sisters are suffering. But it’s also an incredibly rich time to be creative right now. It’s an incredibly rich time to read, to heal. Nature knows what she’s doing. And nature has shut down the factories that were polluting the skies. Someone told me the other day, “Oh, I live in a place where we see dolphins in the sea again.” There’s a town in India that can see the Himalayas again. Nature knows what she’s doing. How many of us were exhausted? Now we’re being asked to rest more. How many of us never spent time with our families? Now all we do is spend time with our families. People say the divorce rate is going to skyrocket
and the baby rate is going to skyrocket. And I’ll tell you for myself, 40 chapters of the new book last week. This might be the richest time of my creativity that I’ve ever had. I thought the four years that I wrote The 5AM Club. was creatively rich for me, and it was, but right now, through lockdown we are being put into creative lockdown.
Life is forcing you to lock down around resting more, lock down around producing creativity,
lock down around reading books, lock down about meditating. We’re forced to lock down and feel what we’ve been refusing to feel. It’s a time of incredible healing. Anyway, I know it’s a lockdown rant, but I want to share with you it’s a sad time and it’s a glorious time. It’s a glorious time to build intimacy with what you want to stand for in the world and not judge your success by the things you wear in public, like your watches or your shoes or the car. You know, our cars, if we have cars, our cars are in our driveways now. If you were deriving your self-worth from your looks or your clothes, well, I’m wearing sweat pants right now. I don’t want to show you them because I don’t want to traumatize you any more than I have
in this Instagram Live. Anyway, guys, thanks. I hope this has been helpful and I’ll talk to you soon. What should I say? If you want to go deeper, I’ll post this so you can watch it again. And I’d really appreciate for all of you, if you haven’t read The 5AM Club., the best resource I can offer to you is, readThe 5AM Club or listen to the audio book. And for those of you who are reading it and sharing it on your stories and in your Instagram feeds, I just want to thank you. I mean, thank you. A lot of you say, “Robin, The 5AM Club has changed my life.” I see that every day. If you want to help me, just tell everyone you know about The 5AM Club so we get the message out.
And last thing I’d say is, I’ve done a free ebook that people are loving in lockdown. It’s called The World Changers Manifesto. I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to the link in my profile in my Instagram feed, the link in my profile. Guess what? You can download it today for free. I hope it helps, and this has been fun. I hope it’s been helpful to you, and I’ll talk to you soon.